Rescue me
by Spades24
Summary: My second official response to the 'great romance challenge'. Somewhere out there is a mouse in desperate need of love.
1. Chapter 1

I'm not going to say much other than I hope you enjoy this. This is my second story in response to the 'great romance challenge' set by The Third Biker Scholar. Can't remember if this was on your list... but here goes.

* * *

Rescue me

At last he had found it. After spending several days in the Elysium plains searching for a tiny point on his map, a veritable grain in a sandstorm, the young mouse spotted the hand-like formation nestled on the horizon. This was it. This was where he was. All these years and he was right under their noses, hiding out here in the red deserts of Mars. No doubt this hadn't always been the case, but the latest whispers had been provocatively credible and it was an opportunity to explore regardless of outcome.

The tunnel entrance was well-concealed in the haphazard landscape, but he didn't need to use his eyes to find it. Smell was his greatest ally in such circumstances, and this particular odour had stayed with him in his memory for somewhere near ten years now. He had been barely out of childhood back then. The terrible image had burned into the deepest recesses of his adolescent mind, leaving an imprint so vivid and so profound that he could practically still taste the salt of his tears, and of his comrades tears, as they had mourned their tragic loss.

The mouse crept closer. He was an excellent tracker in his own right, although he tended to pull a lot more guard duty than his talents were really worthy of. Today he would be needing all of his skills, honed over his lifetime of being surrounded by war and fighting with the rebels he grew up with. This was his chance to put them to good use.

The entrance was modest in size, and the narrow passageways beyond were dimly lit and particularly unwelcoming... foreboding even. How anyone could live in here, way out from civilisation, surrounded by nothing but miles of rusty dirt, with sandstorms tearing apart the land outside the rocky hideaway, and the freezing temperatures at night... _Someone desperate could..._

But the mouse knew they preferred this type of dwelling. In contrast to his own kind, who lived in large, airy caves, with open access to sunlit ledges, the other rodent species on this planet preferred long, gloomy tunnels, and tended to spend much of their waking hours in a nocturnal rhythm. Rats liked the dark. It offered them protection from diurnal enemies, although this had originated as a way of avoiding their natural predators, as well as competition for resources.

_They probably just can't stand the sight of their own kind anymore than we can._

The smell was stronger in here. It wasn't just the usual musky tang of his distant kin, there was a mixture of other aromas drifting through the stale tunnel air. He sniffed a few times, trying to identify the myriad of chemicals he was detecting. A vague whiff of tinned rations, a hint of sour sweat and bodily fluids. The faintest trace of... sadness. Despair. _Fear_.

_Fear? Not him, he would never be afraid. He's too self-assured to let that even cross his mind._

The emotional perfume came with its own distinct markers. They weren't from a rat. They weren't even male.

_Can it be..? It has to be... but how? They said she was dead!_

As he pressed on deeper the feminine scent became stronger, and he followed it with his heart beating hard against his ribs. If this really was the mouse they had all witnessed be so unexpectedly abducted all that time ago... _He better not have harmed her, or I swear I will rip his throat out with my teeth._

He found himself guided to what appeared to be some kind of living area. The furnishings were sparse; just a worn mattress on the floor, with a filthy blanket bunched up at one end; a small, rickety table and chair by the back wall of the chamber, and a chipped stone basin tucked away in a slight enclave in the rocky wall. At first the mouse thought he had come to a dead end, and that his nose had been somehow fooled into thinking there was someone in here when it appeared there was no one. He was about to leave and search elsewhere when a voice came from the room.

"Don't go" it whispered, harsh and croaky as if it had not been used for some time.

He wheeled back round, and for the first time noticed a pair of blue eyes peering out from the bundled blanket on the old mattress. She hadn't moved the whole time he had been peering into the tiny cave. Her fawn-coloured fur was dull and matted, and her eyes were dim and full of apprehension. Those topaz eyes, once so bright they could light up the darkest of moments with a single glance. Now the faded gems were hardly recognisable. But he knew.

"Harley...? Is... is that you?"

Her ears twitched at the use of her name. She hadn't heard someone say it for such a long time now, not in any way that was kind or friendly. The last person to say address her with any semblance of caring had been that cute-faced, white-furred mouse. He had screamed after her so loudly as she had been taken it had echoed in her ears, and haunted her for many years after. _Vinnie... why didn't you come... why didn't you come and find me?_

"Who's there..? Please... _don't hurt me_." The trembling figure curled in the corner of the room squeaked those last few words, unsure if she had made the right move by calling the male back.

"It's me Harley... don't you remember?" The young mouse stepped closer to her tiny, shaking frame, the dim torch-light in the cave illuminating the distinctive yellow blaze cresting his long, furry mop. He may have grown up since she last saw him, but he had hardly changed in either appearance or character. Rimfire wasn't one for sitting around doing nothing, and he had always yearned for meaningful action. This mission fulfilled just that.

"Rimfire?" Her eyed widened with recognition. _He found me... at last someone's found me!_

"Yeah, it's me... let's get you out of here before... ummm..." The sable-furred Martian wasn't sure if Mace was even here, the scent of rat in the tunnels was not fresh – but that didn't mean he wouldn't be showing his ugly snout again soon. He had to get the frail girl to safety before that thick-tailed traitor came back and tried to stop them.

The younger mouse led the frightened female out of the dingy passages and into the comparatively bright Martian dusk. This was not a good thing, it would soon be well below freezing and they would need to take shelter before the night was in.

Rimfire wound his tail around the girl's narrow waist, noting how much thinner she seemed, and how the sharp bones of her ribs and pelvis rubbed against him as she clung his body from the back of his waiting bike. She was already shivering; her clothes were thin and tattered and her unkempt fur was patchy with grime, and further broken by shining, purple scars. She had lost a lot of weight, and had little on her to keep her warm. She pressed her delicate little snout into the denim fabric of his short jacket, and then snaked her hands under its front seams, rubbing her cold digits in his fur to try and warm them.

"Hold on Harley, i'm going to get us somewhere safe to spend the night. I found a cave not far from here, it should give us the protection we need until morning." Rimfire urged his Martian bike on harder. The cave he was thinking of was still several miles away across hostile desert, and once the light had gone it would be very difficult to find. After what seemed like hours he finally pulled up outside the outcrop he had explored earlier that day.

"Phew, we made it... just in time too." Rimfire dismounted and lifted the skinny bag of bones into his arms, and carried her into the sheltered crevice tucked between the rocks. He pulled his supply pack from the bike and quickly set up camp, first lighting a fire at the entrance to their hideaway, followed by extracting some ration tins and setting them to heat up in the flickering flames. He pulled a blanket from the satchel and wrapped it round his companion, before offering her some of the meagre meal he had prepared.

They ate in silence. He didn't want to ask her about her captivity just yet, and she didn't seem to want to open up, or say anything at all.

Soon the fire burned down to glowing embers, and the two mice huddled together under the blanket, the younger mouse sharing his body heat with the shaking form at his side. She nuzzled in closer, enjoying the feel of another of her kind. It had been so long, so lonely an existence. Even when he had been there... he didn't treat her like a lady. He didn't treat her like a person at all.

At first light the young freedom fighter packed up their camp, and set the fragile woman behind him on the bike. Rimfire had travelled for several days before he had reached the hand-shaped outcrop in this desolate region of Mars, and he knew it would take him just as long to get home, if not longer. If Mace realised she was gone, or if he encountered sand raiders... or worse, saber squids, the return journey could be a lot more difficult than he was hoping to get away with. He would just have to try to make it to the next outpost without any confrontations, and that meant going as fast as his now fuel-poor vehicle would allow him. Running out of gas out here would be very dangerous indeed.

Thankfully they made the 150 mile sprint before the bike died, although for the last few miles the sable mouse could have sworn the engine was running on air.

"Thank goodness for that... you ok Harley? Sorry we couldn't stop..." Despite the limited ration of water in the pack, Harley had drunk almost all of it before they set off, and no doubt was quite uncomfortable for the last 100 miles.

"I'm alright... please tell me there's a bathroom here, I really need to freshen up!"

It was amazing the difference a few hours out of the rat's den had made to her mood. The promise of freedom from a life under Mace's thumb had made her eyes shine with their old wicked sparkle, and that teasing humour the young male had experienced as a teen was starting to show though once again.

"Yep, you are in luck – they even have a shower!" Rimfire grinned. He sensed the girl was just dying to wash off the stench of rat from her. "I'll get you a change of clothes too – though err... they might not have your size..." He trailed off. Not only was she thinner than a cat-walk model, she was a she... and he hadn't seen many women at this outpost before.

"Excellent... now be a good boy and..."

"Hey! I'm not a kid anymore Harley!" The young mouse growled... she was **still** as bad as his uncle Modo.

Harley giggled and flounced off to the shower block, her slender tail waggling almost seductively at him. The male mouse shook his head in disbelief. _Was she...was she flirting with me just then? _He pushed the thought away, reasoning with himself. No, she was just happy to be back among mice. Happy to be out of that hole, away from that _rat._ And soon she would be back among her friends and family, back to living something of a normal life, and the whole sorry ordeal would be behind her. He hoped.

They spent the rest of the day at the outpost, with Rimfire refuelling his bike and restocking supplies, whilst Harley raided the small out-post kitchen for as much food as she could reasonably get away with. The captain on duty at the base assigned them their own bunks, although Harley had insisted she not be given her own room. From the look in her eyes it was obvious she did not want to spend another night alone in the dark. Having already spent the previous sleeping with her, Rimfire gallantly offered she share a room with him - but as there was limited accommodation on site, that left only two choices. Either they bunk down in the main dorm with all the other mice there... or they make use of a battered-looking pull-out sofa-bed tucked away in one of the storage closets.

Rimfire had been all for the dormitory option. Harley had not.

"Uh... I guess we will be taking the store room then..." He had never blushed so hard in his life. The other officers sniggered as he led Harley down the hall to the tiny junk-filled closet, nudging each other in the ribs as he passed by the door to the main sleeping quarters.

"Are you sure about this Harley... I mean... umm... I can errr... go... sorry stay... and..." He was desperately trying to think of something that wouldn't offend the lady mouse who was now pulling _him_ enthusiastically down the hallway. She turned to the reluctant mouse in her grasp.

"Yes Rimfire, i'm sure... don't leave me on my own tonight. I can't... I..." Rimfire caught the tormented look on her soft, high-boned cheeks. He understood.

He made up the make-shift bed with the sheets he had been given, and soon they were both tucked in together, staring up at the harsh glare of the cupboard's fluorescent strip light. A noticeable gap was between the two bodies despite the impossible smallness of the sponge mattress.

"Rimfire... would you mind..?"

He looked confused for a moment, and then realised she wanted him to flip the light switch.

"Um, sorry... wasn't sure for a moment..." He was glad they were lying in darkness now, he wouldn't want her to see him flushing the deep maroon his skin had gone under his fur.

Several more minutes passed, and whilst the young warrior kept quite still (with his arms held rigidly against his side) his companion shifted about next to him trying to get comfortable. She seemed to be edging closer and closer... until eventually he felt a thin, furry arm drape itself over his chest. She nestled her head into his side, whilst her free arm adjusted to allow her delicate little fingers to grasp hold of his broad, strong hand.

Rimfire didn't know what to say, or to do. He knew that Harley had been starved of affection for the best part of the last decade, but the last time she had seen him he was still (in their eyes at least) a kid. This was just a little more than weird for him, as much as he cared about the frail female mouse at his side.

"H...Harley... are you... I... umm..." The tongue-tied male stammered as he felt the bony processes in her tail rubbing against his thigh. She curled it snugly around his muscled leg, and let the tip of the appendage trace across the back of his knee. His leg twitched under the touch, but she didn't stop.

_Oh grand-moma... _

The petite-figured mouse was trying to get closer, and soon she had pulled his board-stiff arm from his side, and pushed herself under it so that she was pressed right against his torso. She laid her head onto his well-muscled chest, and breathed deeply with content.

They lay like this for some time, Rimfire's heart pounding below the head of his companion, her ears flat against his ribs listening to the steady rhythm. Part of him hoped she had fallen asleep... part of him was waiting.

Suddenly Harley stretched upwards and pushed her face into his, and before he could register the action a terrible pain stabbed into his head. In the darkness his eyes were seeing a rushing stream of images, flashing relentlessly across the forefront of his mind. Most of the images were of places he didn't recognise, but regardless of the setting he did know the face of the person in each and every one of them. That long grey snout and stubby ears... covered only by the ginger-furred mask when he was standing over her... _Lying_ over her...

Harley pulled away, and the connection between their fleshy-red antennae was severed. Tears streamed down the sides of her little snout, and dripped from her chin onto his soft furry abdomen. Ten years worth of pain and suffering. Ten years of loneliness. Ten years of being dragged around the cosmos, and being forced to attend to the every whim of her captor. Ten years of being used, and never once being shown a simple kindness. Ten years in the company of a rat who raped her almost every night he had her.

Rimfire was stunned. He hadn't expected Harley to even speak of her long captivity, let alone show him just about every single detail of her entire ordeal. He felt sick to the depths of his stomach. No wonder she had wanted to get a shower the first chance she had. She wanted to rid herself of the smell of the one who had repeatedly forced himself on her.

The young mouse pulled the sobbing girl into a tight, but gentle hug. He rocked her until her breathing calmed, and lent his head downwards to kiss the top of her head. She gripped him so hard he wondered if she thought he was going to vanish from the room in a puff of smoke.

"It's alright Harley, you're safe now, no one's going to hurt you like that ever again... no one... I promise..."

He couldn't stop thinking about what she had just shown him. The implications of the abuse she had suffered were far, far worse than appeared. Although distantly related, the two rodent-like species on Mars had diverged from each other considerably over the course of evolution. Aside from the more obvious difference in appearance (and the vast differences in culture...), there were much more subtle diversifications in certain traits that most of the Martian population never even thought about. Rimfire happened to have paid close attention to every slither of information he had been able to glean from his numerous adult guardians and teachers alike.

Part of the process of becoming two separate and distinct species had involved numerous differences in their reproductive strategies. For example, whilst the mice tended to have only one or two offspring, rats had large litters. Mice tended to pair for life, though not always, yet the rats lived in more complex societies with multiple partners. As in keeping with other polygamous versus monogamous species, this had led to a drastic divergence in their reproductive anatomy. The shape and texture of the male's genitalia was far more... scary looking... in the rats. Rimfire had heard terms relating to the competition between males to 'claim' the chance to fertilise a female. And something about scraping. He shuddered. A rat's sex life was a brutal affair indeed.

By contrast the mice had no need for rough tactics between the sheets, and in fact everything about the way they made love was... well like love. Gentle. Passionate. Wild sometimes. But never brutal... although he couldn't be certain what it would be like for a mouse to be raped by another. But a mouse being raped by a rat was not only unnatural but a downright abomination. Mace would have been just as cruel to use a thorn-covered branch doused in acid.

Poor Harley had screamed wretchedly during the first few months of the abuse. After that she was too numb inside, _too damaged _to feel it anymore.

How on earth she could want to be in the presence of another male he couldn't comprehend. Perhaps she just needed to know what it was like to be in the arms of a mouse again. Even an embrace from a rat would be little comfort, with their wiry guard hairs covering the thick, coarse-furred pelts on their bodies.

Yet here she was, holding him in a tight embrace, pressing her pointed muzzle into his downy textured body, rubbing her face along the grooves of his well-defined pecs, trailing her rough-tipped nails over the contours of his abs...

_Oh...my...god... _

The young mouse had been brought up a gentleman. He wouldn't take advantage of someone so vulnerable. But she was pushing him to the very limits of his self control. _Urging_ him to respond to her touch.

_Have to stop her... won't be able to stop myself..._

She was nibbling the short velvety hairs around his concealed nipples, searching for them with her teeth. She used her tongue to part the hairs around his areola, and having found the vestigial bumps of tissue hidden on his chest, she took each one in turn between her large incisors, pulling at them gently, teasing them until they stood erect.

_Holy mother of angels... that feels sooo good..._

She nuzzled the bulging pectoral domes and pressed the sensitive tissues into her mouth. She sucked lightly at first, then pushed her face more firmly into the muscle and took a stronger tug at the hardened teat in her mouth. Rimfire groaned. He had never had a woman do this to him before.

He couldn't hold back much longer. She was teasing him so mercilessly he felt compelled to respond. But he was careful not to rush in case she recoiled from him. He lifted himself from the bed slowly, and made to unbutton his cotton-fabric trousers. Harley swiftly sat up to help him with the fastenings, taking her cue from the mouse's actions. She then pulled off her borrowed army-issue t-shirt and grabbed his hands, pulling them towards her own trousers. Once their garments were removed and discarded on the floor, the two naked mice lay down together on the thread-bare sofa-bed.

"Umm... Harley... I don't want you to think i'm... you know... taking advantage... using you... or something... If you don't want this..."

She answered by pressing her lips to his, drawing his tongue into her mouth with her teeth, pushing her own deep down into his throat.

He pushed her back, needing to breathe. _Wow... she's good... great even..._

"I want you to do it Rimfire, all of it, I want to do it like a mouse is meant to. Please do this for me, please... _help me_."

His hormone-flooded body had no trouble at all in giving the love-starved lady mouse everything she wanted. They kissed, they touched. She teased him with her cunning caress, nibbling every part of his exposed body, licking the plush fur with her delicate tongue, stimulating every nerve in his body until he felt he was going to erupt with passion. He used his own larger hands to explore the mal-nourished, yet still quite feminine body, hating that she was so thin, wishing he had found her sooner... groaning under the pressure building in his abdomen.

Her explorations had reached his nether regions, and she took the fur-covered sheath first in her hands and then into her mouth, playing with the loose skin with her teeth and tongue whilst her palms stroked the swollen testicles between his legs.

_Yikes... yikes... oh crap, oh crap... Modo's going to kill me..._

But even the threat of being decked by his giant, grey-furred uncle wasn't going to stop him now. She had not only initiated the foreplay, she had practically just pressed the go button for the whole coupling process. She wasn't just teasing now, she was demanding. She sucked on the sheath to entice the tip of the male's shaft out, which it did so quite willingly. He was fully primed, now it was her turn.

Harley was already very well lubricated by the time he pressed his own snout between her long legs. He took a few moments though to add his own wetness to the entrance of her vulva, although when his tongue passed over the fleshy lips and pushed inside them he could feel the damage that had been done before him. And that was only what he could detect within the reach of his tongue.

Now Rimfire knew that he was going to make it all better. He knew the real reason why she wanted him so badly. She wanted the hurting inside to stop. She wanted all traces of that rapist rebel rat removed from her body, and she knew that the young male she was embracing would be able to do all of that for her. For in their path of evolution the Martian mice had developed another little quirk to their sexual strategies. In times of need, in times of war, or following great sickness or injury; at times when their population levels fell to critical and the urge to breed became life or death for their species, the mice were able to maximise their reproductive success through one very precious, yet little known process. A male, especially the younger ones, contained a cocktail of chemicals in his semen that (when appropriate) would make the environment inside the female's vagina _extra_ welcoming for his sperm to venture through. Whether this was by boosting her fertility, or simply reducing her body's immune system's attack on the foreign cells, this was how the Martian mouse population would one day trump the rats in their greatly differing love lives.

Rimfire, though, wasn't here to make the lady Martian pregnant. Her body was still far too fragile for that. No. He was there to heal the wounds inside her, and his semen would not only destroy any remnants from the rats own intrusions, but would stimulate the delicate soft tissues to heal themselves. In time the scars would also be dealt with, the physical ones and the emotional.

Now he had his purpose, and he was content with it. He mounted his waiting mate from behind and pushed inside her, the tip of his shaft extruding from its sheath and slipping into the warm, wet canal smoothly and gently. Once inside he expanded completely, and he was able to feel the full extent of the injuries in the female's battered organs.

She moaned softly, the supple hairs of his body tickled around her opening, stimulating intense waves of pleasure. But inside it still hurt, and though the young mouse was taking his time, trying his best to make her as comfortable as possible, every thrust he made rubbed the tender tissues and sent stabs of pain rampaging through her abdomen.

_Don't cry you silly woman, if he sees you crying he will stop. You need this, don't let him see you cry._

Rimfire was experiencing his own mixed feelings about the pairing. He sensed every twinge of pain, and each time his penis brushed against a tear in her vagina it contracted, clamping briefly onto him before releasing. He knew it hurt her... but her body's response to it only further pleasured him. It wasn't long before he climaxed.

She didn't pull away. She had already said she wanted the whole thing. Rimfire had had 'the talk' with his uncle and his uncle's two best friends long ago, so he was well aware of the entirety of the process.

After a brief rest, without pulling out to do so, he resumed his actions until he climaxed again. He did this a third time, then a fourth, and so on until he had managed eight whole cycles. The last one was so intense he'd had to bury his face into Harley's neck to keep himself from screaming out in ecstasy. He bit into the loose skin behind her head, and she cried out quietly. She hadn't climaxed herself, the soreness prevented that. Normally she would have started on the mouse's second round, and by the time he had reached the eighth her vagina would have clamped hard onto him, sealing the bond, allowing them to ride out the shockwaves of their liaison for several hours afterwards.

He pulled out in one smooth action and quickly reached his face downwards, seeking out where he had just been with his long, pink tongue, and delicately licked the edges of her vulva. He could taste her, her delicious feminine juices, and his own blended together with hers in a cocktail of lust and passion. He knew he had done everything she asked. Soon she would be whole again, and able to move on from her terrible confinement at the hands of that disgusting Martian traitor.

As he lay back down with her on the small bed, pulling her wiry frame close to him so that he could feel her pert breasts pressing against his own chest, entwining his tail around hers to complete the embrace, he knew she was grateful for everything he had done. He hadn't just found her in the cave that day. He hadn't just taken her from her tormentor and into the safety of his arms. He had given her a new life to look forward to, one that was free of shame. One free of the terrible legacy left inside her by that rat. She lay there now in his gentle, muscular embrace, secure from harm at long last. Free._ Rescued._


	2. Chapter 2

It was late for me last night when I finished 'Rescue Me' and to be honest I didn't even think about one very large, glaring hole in the story. Where was Mace when Rimfire came calling? How come it was so easy for him to get Harley out of there... did the rat follow them and interrupt their steamy little love session? Hmm... well here is my answer to the gentle nudge given to me by The Third Biker Scholar - thanks by the way, hope this fulfils your enquiring mind's expectations!

* * *

Rescue me: Mace's story

He was tired. Very tired. Tired of running, tired of hiding. Tired of the company he kept. Before he had made camp in the hand-shaped rock cresting the Elysium plains he had had at least someone more lively to talk to... someone more responsive than _her_. But every time he had shown his face anywhere on this wretched planet he once had called home, someone would recognise him somehow, and soon he would be forced to move on again.

Even when he mixed with his own kind the whispers followed him. Mostly it was curiosity, sometimes even a little fear – he was after all notorious for his role in the Plutarkian war – but frequently this would transform into distrust, and even his old comrades would end up asking him to leave.

It had been easier when he was travelling the galaxy. His disguises were much more effective with species that did not rely on smell for identification. But all that moving around had left him exhausted and longing for a single place he could call his own, somewhere where he didn't have to wear a mask. Somewhere familiar. In the end he had decided there was only one place that would ever be, and so as soon as he was able he had taken his final trip back to Mars.

The first few nights had been tough. He had been away for so long he took some time to get his bearings. Even though the destructive intrusion from those fish-like invaders had been halted, the landscape had still altered considerably since the last time he saw the red planet. He had found himself hiding out in the deserts, the only shelter for miles being the small rock formations that cropped up here and there. But this was the only place he could go, he didn't want to be discovered wandering around the more populated areas. Not with her at his side.

_They still haven't given up looking... even after ten years? _

The female mouse he had taken hostage that day nearly a decade ago was his only company now. At first she had fought him; her strong will and high spirits pushed her to test him, to find his weaknesses in the hope she might exploit them. She hadn't reckoned on his own stubbornness though, and he refused to give her any leeway. As soon as he had found a place to rest for a few days, he had taken her to his bed and forced her to submit to him, using his male strength and insatiable virility to break her down, to make her accept that she was his now and that this would not change unless he willed it.

_Now she doesn't scream anymore... There's no passion in her soul, nothing for me to work with, nothing for me to push back down. She might as well be dead. _

Some nights he lay beside her wondering if he had been too forceful in those early days. At least when she still had the character to challenge his every move it had been far more exciting for him. Her struggles whilst he forced himself into her had aroused him far more than any female of his own kind had ever managed. Her fur was so soft compared to his species' coarse-haired pelt, and her seductive scent far more appealing. Female rats bore a much more musky odour, and hadn't evolved the means to attract a mate like the other rodent beings on this planet had. Unlike the mice, their females usually did everything in their power to keep male attention to a minimum.

_I don't blame them... even for us sex is pretty rough. Must be worse for this mouse though._

Mace didn't feel a shred of sympathy for the whimpering form pinned beneath his body. As far as he was concerned, she was there to pay the price of her kindred's superior attitude to his race. Martian mice always looked down on the rats... and so when it came to a choice between slavery or death versus survival, they had taken the latter. Now the mice had a real reason to think badly of his species. They had done a deal with the devil and taken the money offered to them by the Plutarkian scum who wanted their land.

_And now we live on the fringes of society, reviled by our distant kin. No matter, our time will come... we will take over this planet in the end._

After nearly a year living in the cave, this thought kept coming to him more and more frequently. It bothered him. Whilst his comrades had moved on from the war and settled down to start families, he was out here alone with a mouse. For all their similarities they were still too different to produce any form of viable offspring. Even if they had managed a hybrid, it may not have reached full term, or if it had it would have had difficulties later in life. Who knows what it would have looked like, or how their respective species would have reacted to it. It wouldn't have been worth the effort, or the heart ache. Their progeny would not have been able to have children of its own anyway.

He felt he was wasting his life out here in the desert. If he spent too long away from the colony he would find himself too old to reproduce, and would eventually die without having passed on his genes to the next generation. He yearned for that, the biological imperative that drove all living organisms, the urge to live on in another. He needed a female of his own kind, he needed the chance to claim the right to fertilise her eggs, the access point to a litter of his own.

Just one female would give him several offspring. They frequently had more than six, sometimes up to ten, although this was quite rare nowadays. Their fertility rates had fallen quite drastically since the Plutarkian invasion, and didn't seem to be showing any signs of picking up now they were gone.

_At least we're doing better than those stupid mice... how do they ever expect to repopulate having only one or two kids over their whole life?_

Mace was smug about this one detail. As rough as it was for their females, and despite the complexity at which their families groups operated, at least their way they could maintain their genetic diversity, giving them a better chance of surviving such a huge contraction in numbers.

_But here I am stuck with that dead-eyed mouse. Is there any point to it anymore?_

For several days he had brooded, musing over the lack of social interaction, wishing for the feel of one of his own against him. As nice as the mouse had been, now she was a mere bag of skin and bone. Filthy and disgusting, and of no further use to him. He wanted to leave, he wanted to seek out a mate and leave this lonely, nomadic life for good.

Then one day everything changed. He had left the cave to search for supplies, leaving his captive bound in the deepest part of the tunnel system so that she would not escape in his absence. The trip itself took a couple of days, and as he headed back towards the rock on his battered-looking motorcycle (stolen from one of the mouse-led outposts) he found himself not wanting to go back at all. Despite the negativity of his thoughts about returning to the stale-smelling cave, he would have still returned there... had it not been for something else catching his attention.

For once the desert winds were relatively calm, and as the rat pulled his worn bike over to the shelter of a small outcrop he detected something lingering on the light breeze. Something wafting enticingly across the copper sands and into his flaring nostrils. A musty scent... the distinct aroma of fertility. The perfume of a female rat in season.

As the seductive odour penetrated his sensitive nose his mouth began to water, allowing him to taste the pheromones filling the air around him.

_A rat... a female rat... and she is so close... I must get to her... I must get to her before anyone else does._

What any rat was doing out here he couldn't fathom, perhaps there was a small tribe roaming the desert, eking out a life away from the disapproving glare of the Martian mouse population. Whatever. He didn't care why, he just wanted to know _where._

His hormones had been triggered by the chemical message, and were rampaging through his racing blood stream, signalling to his body that it was at last the time to fight for a mate. His heart rate soared, pushing adrenalin to his muscles and testosterone to his brain, readying him for both battle and for sex.

He abandoned his resting site, and sped as fast as the dilapidated vehicle would allow to the hand-like formation on the horizon. He would have gone straight to the source of the tantalizing smell, but he had unfinished business to attend to in the cave.

He practically leapt down the concealed tunnel in his haste to conclude his dealings with the mouse. He ran down the passageway, first into his own quarters to gather all the supplies (not to mention important equipment and incriminating evidence of his activities) that he needed, before turning once more to the small cave deep inside the rock. She was still exactly where he had left her, and she gazed up at him with terror etched across her bony face, cringing into the mattress on which she huddled. Her eyes were wide in fear as he approached, no doubt afraid of what he was going to do to her next.

He bent down with the long, dull-edged blade gripped in his clawed hand, and she moaned beneath her cloth gag. She was sure this was the end this time, and she almost hoped it was.

_Stupid woman... she doesn't even realise she is free. _

So unfeeling was her tormentor that after he had cut her free from the ropes he did not even inform her he was leaving. He stood over her for one last time, baring his teeth in disgust at what she had become.

"If I find you have moved from this spot when I return..." Mace didn't need to finish the sentence, the threat of any harm against her was enough. He turned away, barely able to contain the pleasure welling up inside him. He was finally going to leave this dump, and that broken-bodied woman would do as she had been told, and stay there expecting him to show up any moment, expecting him to punish her. She wouldn't know that he wasn't coming back. She would die there rather than risk it.

He would leave her and go in search of the fertile female he had detected earlier, and if he was lucky he would reach her first and take her as his mate. If he wasn't the first he would fight for the right to claim her, and if he failed... well he probably wouldn't live long enough to make it back to the squalid den anyway. No matter what lay in store for him now, anything was better than wasting away in that hole, wishing he had lived a different life, yearning for the family he had been denied for so long. He cared not for the fate of the girl he had kidnapped all those years ago... he couldn't even remember her name anymore. She was nothing to him. All that was important now was _his_ future, whatever that may be, and as he left the rocky cave that had been his home, he didn't even once look back.


End file.
